New blog posts coming up about my African cotton stitching, Sweet Scarlett's baby blanket, travels to NY to see the Agnes martin retro, South African inspirations and more. I'd love to keep in touch with you. Please come on over and then sign up to get updates when I post a new blog which is every couple of weeks. Thanks so much for following me here for the past 10 years and looking forward to seeing you on my new Wordpress blog. Love, Val.

April 09, 2016

We are in South Africa and visiting the wonderful embroiderers of the Mapula Embroidery Group in the Winterveld . Mapula means Mother of Rain. We love visiting the Mapula ladies with our tour group. I've known these ladies for the past 10 years when I was importing their goods through my business African Threads. Their embroidered tapestries are highly collectible and noteables from Queen Elizabeth to Obama have pieces. If you want to add a piece to your collection, I can help you find a piece directly from the group. You can lean a bit more the embroiderers here.

March 16, 2016

This stack of folded kuba raffia cloth exudes texture, colour and energy. Abstract designs are appliquéd on to a background fabic. The colours suggest the essence of Africa. I spotted these fabrics when we visited Kim Sacks Gallery in Johannesburg on our last tour to South Africa. I've been visiting Kim Sacks' Gallery for the past 35 years. I wouldn't miss it. Kim curates the best African textiles, pottery and artifacts from across Africa. I always take my tour group there and this is where we'll be next month. Check out the web site and get a taste of the best craft gallery in Africa. Here is a full kuba cloth that my friend Rosi Robinson bought from the gallery during out visit.

February 23, 2016

I photographed this detail from a piece of handwoven raffia cloth in a shop in South Africa. Decorated with beads and cowrie shells. Some of the squares are dyed with indigo. It has a kind of pom-pom edging.

November 17, 2015

Today, when some in our world seem hungry to divide people violently along racial and religious lines, I find myself thinking about growing up in Apartheid South Africa. In Durban in the late 60's, I was not supposed to go alone to the Indian Market, in the heart of the city. Intensely jostling, with thousands of Zulu and Indian people shopping in the maze of shops and stalls, it held endless attraction for me, as forbidden things usually do. Here I discovered community in shops, arcades, and markets. Locals willingly taught me how use exotic spices, make chili bites and dhal, how to drape a sari, about Hindu ceremony and traditional African herbs called muti. Salim became a good friend and we visited most Saturdays in Madrassa Arcade, talking about the Koran, the mosque, music, movies; the usual things young people chat about. Salim, invited me to his traditional Muslim wedding and I was the only non-Muslim there. Durban's Indian market area was the genesis for my love of fabrics, baskets, spicy food and an abiding desire to visit India one day. I still use my market basket like the ones shown in the photos above, for my weekly foray to the Lunenburg Farmers' Market, a world away.

Fabric was cheap and the shopkeepers willing to bargain hard. The Indian community here is one of the oldest and largest outside of India and they formed the backbone of the merchants and infused the country with a love of curry and markets gardens. I'll write more about the fabrics later. For now, I'd like to tell you about the Indian markets at Grey and Victoria Streets - it was a seminal part of my growing up. My world was expanded and enriched by those years of Saturday forays to Grey Street, I loved the rich culture that I found there. The Indian and African market areas endure as favorite places to visit when I take my tour group to Durban each year. It is an essential cultural experience of South Africa.

Last year I met Mrs Govender at a spice shop at Victoria Market. Her shop has been in her family for over 100 years. We discovered a link. Her uncle had worked at my husband's family sugar mill at Illovo a generation ago. We were both delighted with the connection, however tenuous, our conversation helped me pick up a thin thread of connection. I left this city 40 years ago, yet I am stitched into this place.

Fond memories bubble up when I see the palm trees at the mosque entrance, or smell the curries and bunny chow mingled with incense and diesel fumes from the many buses, the thumping loud music blaring from speakers. It is hectic, very hot and remarkably unchanged. A recent New York Times article about Durban curry will give you some insight to my old stomping grounds and explain what a bunny chow is. Be sure to take a whirlwind tour of this area with a taxi driver in a video at the end of the blog.

Here is my tour group exploring the African clothes sellers market where dresses and pinnies are strung up in curtains of colour and prints.

One of the most mysterious areas is the African Medicinal Herbs market. Indigenous plants are used by traditional healers for potions and cures. Often there are dried snakes, lizards, innards and bones in bundles with herbs for various cures - and sometimes spells. The patterns, textures and aromas are strong. I'm looking forward to going back next April.

Take a whirlwind tour around Durban with the taxi driver to get a real life flavour of Durban: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNjU3DXMgcY

October 31, 2015

Judy Martin wrote a lovely piece about some embroideries I'd bought on my recent tour to South Africa. These highly expressive pieces were made by women in the Isipethu Sewing Collective in KwaZulu Natal. We visit this group each time we take our tour to South Africa. These embroideries tell us about the women's lives. Interested in come to South Africa with me next April? We still have a few spaces on the tour. www.africanthreads.ca

June 11, 2015

Here is the continuation of my story of shopping in Limpopo Province in South Africa. Scroll down to the previous blog for more photos from this African Trading store that we visited.After we said goodbye to the Shangaan women, a group of Venda women arrived in the trading store in their characteristic brightly striped wraps. Their blouses were made of printed shwe-shwe indigo cotton. The women tie a bright, stripy cotton wrap over one shoulder. The wraps are embellished with ribbon and braids to make the striped design more complex. The last photo below is of a stack of shwe-shwe fabrics.

Wendy bought some yellow striped Venda fabric and others in our tour group are buying sarongs from Swaziland.

This last photo shows a stack of shwe-shwe fabrics which is the iconic fabric of South Africa. I'm planning to write more about shwe-shwe in a future blog. Oh and I want to also tell you about the elephants that surrounded our safari truck, and the leopard we saw, and the women's groups we visited.... many adventure to share with you. More information at www.africanthreads.ca

June 10, 2015

When we visited Limpopo Province this past April, our tour group was thrilled to stop at an African trading store. Three generations of an Indian family had owned the store supplying fabric to the various groups in the area: the Shangaan, Tsonga and Venda.

Going into this rural fabric shop brought back memories of my youthful fabric buying forays and the start of my love affair with African fabric. Here below, Martha is chatting with a Shangaan woman dressed in Minceka, which consist of two rectangular cloths wrapped around the women's bodies as clothing. Each cloth is draped and tied to the opposite shoulder.

A group of Venda women arrived in their characteristic brightly striped wraps. Their blouses were made of printed shwe-shwe indigo cotton. I’m planning to write a blog about shwe-shwe in the coming months. The Venda women tie a bright stripy cotton wrap over one shoulder. The wraps are embellished with ribbon and braids to make the striped design more complex. Watch for upcoming blogs on more of my adventure in South Africa.

May 30, 2015

In April I led an arts & culture tour to South Africa. I am sitting second from the right with our tour group while visiting a Zulu village near Eshowe, KwaZulu Natal. Behind us are traditional bee-hive huts - such cozy and beautiful structure. We stayed overnight here in a comfy beehive hut, which you can see below, and enjoyed energetic Zulu dancing and great food. Thanks Cindy Bendat for this photo.

I've got a series of blogs planned about various adventure we had, so please stay tuned for more!

The Mapula (means Mother of Rain) Embroidery group is from the Winterveld and Kaross , the other group, is from Limpopo Province South Africa. Both groups are featured in the Fowler show. William Worger, who collected most of the pieces for this exhbition, is giving a talk on October 16 at the Fowler, if you're lucky enough to be close by to take it in. Bill is a professor of African history at UCLA.

We'll be visiting both these textile groups (among others) on my tour to South Africa next April. Learn more about this special arts, culture and textile tour here. Here, Bertha and Pinky Resenga hold a Mapula embroidery about community health and water safety, taken when I visited this group about 6 years ago.

This last piece is from the Kaross Group in Limpopo. It is a large embroidered tapesty of the Rain Queen and is part of my collection. Drop me a line if your interested in acquiring any hangings.

February 22, 2014

Thanks to the Lunenburg Rotary Club and the Tantallon Bay Grans for donating 150 pairs of reading glasses. This wonderful pile of glasses is headed to South Africa with me next week.

I'll spend 2 weeks leading a group of 20 people around some of my favourite places. We'll visit various crafts groups to meet the makers. Some of the groups we'll meet are suppliers for African Threads and are self-help, economic empowerment groups. We love visiting these groups of dynamic women how are using their traditional crafts to make gorgeous textiles, beadwork and copper wire work. Many of them are grandmothers.

Tour members bring embroidery threads, reading glasses, sewing equipment and supplies. We learned that getting reading glasses is one of the most useful of gifts. It enables women to continue beading and embroidery and that in turn means the difference between feeding their families or not. Here are photos of some of the women we gave glasses to last year in South Africa.

For information about my tours to South Africa see http://www.africanthreads.ca/south-african-tour/

February 27, 2013

This hand embroidered square was made by the Intuthuko Sewing Group from Etwatwa Township near Johannesburg. There is wonderful solidarity between Grandmothers in Africa and Canada. To learn more about the remarkable Grandmothers Campaign to support African Grannies, check out the Stephen Lewis Foundation's Grandmothers to Grandmothers site. If you're interested in more of these charming embroidered squares, please get in touch with me and I'll send you photos. They range in price from $20 to $40.

January 20, 2011

Bonnie Samuel asked me to write a guest blog about one of the stitchery groups that I buy textiles from in South Africa. I chose to talk about Isipethu - Zulu for "going to the fountain" - as this group makes the most fascinating collages in appliqué and embroidery. What I find fascinating is that these women are telling actual stories form their daily lives and observations on how women are treated, cultural events and interesting incidents. I hope you get a chance to read about this piece called Wife Number Two by Sheila Mobaso from KawZulu Natal. This cheery looking textile really has a darker story behind it and I explain it all in Bonnie's blog:

June 28, 2010

Oh, you just have to give in and watch a bit of world cup soccer, even if you're not a sports fan. I admit I'm not, but who can resist? I admit I've also given in to the vuvuzelas. You know, those loud horns that the fans blast out, smothering all other sounds. They sound like a massive bee hive. I've been receiving a lot of new wall hangings and embroideries from South Africa with the soccer theme. They are utterly charming!

This is a tiny piece from Isipethu. 8" x 9" It shows the fans with vuvuzelas, one with an umbrella for the sun - they are walikng to the stadium to watch their team: Bafana Bafana. I've listed this little piece, along with some others on my Etsy site. If you're intersted plese check it out at www.africanthreads.etsy.com